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Numerical simulation of Kilauea (Hawaii) volcanic plume dispersion

22.05.2018

A second eruption of Kilauea volcano on the island of Hawaii (Big Island) erupted more powerful than the first occurred on May 3 and sent ash 30,000 feet into the air, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Numerical simulation of volcanic plume dispersion under real atmospheric conditions has been performed using a state-of-the-art WRF-CHEM v.3.9.1, a fully coupled atmospheric chemistry model. The initial and boundary conditions are taken from NCEP FNL (Final) Operational Global Analysis data on 1-degree grids prepared operationally every six hours. The horizontal resolution of the model is 50 km and the time step is 300 s. The model is initialized on 17 May 2018 0000 UTC and the forecast duration is 96 hours at each 6 hours loop. The video animation shows volcanic plume dispersion of the finest volcanic ash particle size bin lower than 3.9 μm expressed as mixing ratios vash_10 (μg/kg_dry air).

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